The city of Cape Coral may beef up background checks for its municipal school system.
Cape Coral City Council heard the first reading of a new section to Cape Coral Charter School Authority Chapter 26 Wednesday. The change includes new verbiage for background and verification for individuals applying and appointed to the charter board.
The new section, 26-5 relates to background and verification. The new language – “to ensure that all individuals applying an/or appointed to the board possess the qualifications, integrity, and experience necessary to fulfill their responsibilities, all applications must undergo an extensive background and vetting process.”
The vetting process would include employment, criminal, financial, education and military status.
City Attorney Aleksandr Boksner said the complete background would be provided to the board before the appointment happens before a regular council meeting. He said if there is any false, fictitious, or misleading information during the application process, “the individual shall be subject to immediate removal from the board by the mayor or city council.”
“This is all brand new – brand new section,” Boksner said, adding that he is letting council know that it has been done to show transparency. “This was not discussed at the Committee of the Whole. It is not final. If there is any modifications, alterations, or removal, it can happen before the second and final public hearing.”
The final public hearing will be held on Jan. 21.
Other sections addressed include student community, which touches upon each student completing an application to be considered for enrollment. Preferences would be given in the following order – to students who matriculate through the elementary, middle, and high schools of Oasis Charter Schools, to children of a member of the board or of an employee of the authority, to siblings of a student already enrolled in the Oasis Charter Schools, to children of active military members, to students enrolled in the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education Program and to children of military veterans.
The city’s school system has four schools — Oasis Elementary, Oasis Elementary South, Oasis Middle School and Oasis High School.
Oasis Charter Schools’ total student enrollment for this school year is 3,454.
There are 1,423 children on system wait lists.
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